More From AMPPR – Part Deux

Some continued reporting from AMPPR attendees.  Valerie Stains is a freelance producer who spent many years at NPR doing a variety of jobs.  She reports on two sessions:

FRED  CHILD, host of Performance Today (Air Talent Training)

As he has done for past radio conferences, popular PT host Fred Child had sent out a pre-conference call for sample air checks to be critiqued at his session, “Air Talent Training.”  When absolutely nothing arrived before the gathering,

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More from AMPPR

I asked some of the attendees at the AMPPR conference in NYC to write reports for this blog.  Here is the first of two installments:

From John Pitman, Music Director at All Classical in Portland OR:

While visiting the facilities of WQXR/WNYC, I felt like I was walking the halls of some vast intergalactic public radio space station:  multiple floors, corridors, elevators, seemingly uncountable staff… it was most impressive.

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Uh-oh. Pay-for-Play in Seattle

It was too good to be true.  One of the local TV stations in Seattle, KING 5 started a local arts show.  But it turns out, this is not really a news/feature program, but rather an infomercial paid for by the 5th Avenue Theater to promote its own shows.  When the theater doesn’t need the airtime, it “rents” the airtime out to other arts groups.  And of course, it’s expensive so the only groups that can afford it are the largest ones.  The disclaimer about this being paid advertising is virtually hidden, and the content is treated like feature reporting.

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